Treading Water
by Flamedancer33
Summary: Some people teach others by tossing them off the boat and seeing if they sink or swim. Balthazar really should have known better.
1. Off the Boat

Watched Sorcerer's Apprentice on July 19th. Loved it. Spent four days writing something epic and and incredible. Didn't like it. Erased it. Sat down to try again. Wrote this in two hours. There is something seriously wrong with me.

Because, you know, they went from fire balls and plasma bolts straight to Defeating All-Powerful Evil Sorceresses, so clearly they skipped a few things, like Magical Creatures for Dummies.

Disclaimer: me no own.

###

It would have been nice to be able to say he'd noticed something wrong the second he walked in. Balthazar certainly would have; probably even sooner, since he seemed to exist mostly to spite his apprentice. But no, Dave- Prime Merlinian, defeater of Morgana- remained cheerful oblivious for over half an hour. He probably would have paid and left and never even noticed it if it hadn't been all but shoved down his throat.

The used bookstore reminded him a good deal of Arcana Cabana- bad memories, even if he now knew it wasn't just a hallucination. The room was cluttered and lofty, the shelves reaching up to twice his height, and weird stuff was scattered everywhere. On the front counter had been a sign warning people not to pet the cat, which Dave found tucked into a little cubby hole behind a row of books. There was one other person in the store, a tall white-haired woman who worked there.

He was working off a list, tracking down and pulling out the books systematically, checking his paper every few minutes. Balthazar's handwriting was atrocious- the letters leaned drastically to the right and the tails of letters like g and l tended to overlap the words above and below them. Dave was tilting the paper in one direction and his head in the other, trying to make sense of the mess, when the woman came over to check on him.

"Do you need any help, young man?" she asked in a scratchy voice that indicated a lifelong pack-a-day habit. Dave glanced up, caught sight of her out of the corner of his eye, and screamed.

Books and papers went flying as the boy launched himself backward; as he had been kneeling to see the bottom row, the maneuver was not exactly successful. He crab-walked the rest of the way until his back hit the bookcase behind him.

"Excuse me!" the woman barked, snatching at a book and shaking it at him. "If you're going to treat these books with so little respect you may very well leave now!"

"You- I-" Dave stared at her, eyes wide. He'd seen a flash of grey-gold scales and a toothy snout, but none of that was present now. All he saw now was an irritated old lady, hands on her hips and eyebrows high. "I saw-"

Her eyes fixed on his ring-wearing right hand, with which he had been gesturing wildly, and her entire demeanor changed.

"Oh! A sorcerer!" She smiled brightly, and then she melted.

Dave pushed himself back harder against the bookcase, watching in mute horror as the woman became something suspiciously reptilian. Long, thin body with six- no, eight- legs, the first two pairs of which ended with dexterous hands with an opposable thumb. Heavy skull balanced on a short neck, wedge-shaped snout. It was about six feet tall and had a long tapering tail and oh dear god he'd found another dragon, Balthazar was going to _murder him_.

"Merlinian or Morganian?" it chirped in the old lady's voice, busying itself with picking up and stacking his books with all four hands.

"Uh," was Dave's brilliant reply. Since it obviously wasn't preparing to eat him, he had relaxed enough to see a few odd things about it- like its flat teeth, and the pink nail polish on its claws, and that it had a pair of eyeglasses balanced on its nose and a pastel blue scarf tucked around its neck. It swung its head around when he didn't answer, blinking at him with cat-like eyes.

"It's not a difficult question," it said. Dave dug his heels into the ground- damn Balthazar and his old man shoes, sneakers got much better traction- and pushed back even harder. Sooner or later the wall would have to swallow him, right?

"Uh," he repeated, because the creature was clearly so overwhelmed by his articulateness. Then he said it again. His mind had completely jumped its tracks and he simply couldn't think of anything else to say.

The dragon-thing sighed and dropped his books in his lap. "You're not too good at this, are you?"

"Hey!" Well, look at that. His vocabulary had just doubled.

"Or are you an apprentice?" it continued. It tilted its head and regarded him. "A bit old for that, aren't you?"

"That's not- there was an issue with an urn," Dave said heatedly.

It occurred to him in the minute-and-a-half of silence that followed that it probably would have been best to leave out the urn part.

Finally, the creature tilted its head the other way and spoke again. "You must be Balthazar's boy, then."

"Now, how did you get that?" he asked, shoving the books out of his lap and standing. The creature in turn slumped down a little so they were eye-to-eye.

"Because only Balthazar Blake could have an _issue_ with an _urn_."

Dave started to protest, instinctively sticking up for his master-slash-friend, then stopped. Truth be told, he'd known Balthazar for barely a month, and it had been extremely quiet. He had no idea what sort of weirdness Balthazar was normally involved in that was being toned down now for his sake.

"Is there some incident in specific you're referring to?" he asked cautiously, probing. Balthazar was particularly close-mouthed on the subject of his past, and due to his unaging nature Dave had yet to find anyone who'd known the man for any substantial length of time. Veronica had plenty of stories from their shared childhood but Balthazar tended to hover like a vulture whenever they were together, which made it somewhat difficult to gossip like schoolgirls.

"Oh, there are plenty," came the breezy reply. "But I'll not be sharing any. If you're looking for dirt on your master, you'd best go digging elsewhere." It picked up the papers Dave had thrown, shuffling through them until it found the list. "He sent you here for these, then?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry, his writing is..."

"Sorcerers," the creature muttered, waving a hand as if to dismiss the whole lot of them. "At least this means you're Merlinian. I'm not much in the mood to deal with a Morganian today."

"You let Morganians come in here?" Dave asked, dumbfounded. "I mean, they don't really seem like the type to pay for what they want."

"They're not." It grinned at him, hard and dark, and he saw that evolution had spared it some defenses: its canines were still very sharp. "But the smart ones can learn."

Yeah, that was only vaguely terrifying.

"By the way, I never introduced myself," the creature said, wandering towards the back of the store. "You may call me Tessha."

"Dave," he offered immediately, out of habit. "Uh, Tessha, I'm sorry, but... what exactly are you?"

It- she, he supposed- looked round at him sharply. After a moment she nodded once. "I suppose I should have seen this one coming. Balthazar certainly prefers to learn through experience."

"You could say that," Dave agreed darkly. Sometimes he genuinely thought Balthazar was out to kill him.

"I," Tessha announced grandly as she started to crawl up the side of a bookcase, "am a book wyrm."

"A bookworm? Seriously?"

One eye peered around the bookcase, narrowed in irritation. "Wyrm, not worm. There is quite a difference."

"Right. Sorry." He watched as she reached the upper level and started combing through those books. "So. How long have you had this place?"

"Oh, a few years," she answered distractedly. "I've been a shopkeeper or owner all my life, though."

"All your life being how long?" Dave asked, already knowing the number would dwarf his own twenty years.

"Three hundred years, give or take a decade. I'm old for a wyrm but I happen to know a very good dermatologist."

…okay. Dermatologist. Whatever works.

"How long have you known Balthazar?"

Tessha paused, gazing at the books. When she started talking, she never once looked at him. "I met him when I was just a hatchling, barely old enough to be considered an intelligent being. He was, however, a very hard man to actually _know_, always coming and going, always searching. And he was being actively hunted by the Morganians, as a bear is hunted by wolves- in small numbers they feared him, but a pack of them would have had little trouble bringing him down. He is adaptable, though, and very clever. Of the three apprentices, he was best suited for Merlin's quest."

She hauled out three books and skimmed her way back to the ground, then scuttled- there was no better word to describe her way of moving- over to him and pointed one pink claw in his face. "There'll be no word of this, understand? He doesn't care much for being gossiped about."

Dave nodded, thinking that Balthazar wouldn't have sent him here alone if he cared that much. Tessha studied him a moment longer before nodding herself and heading over to the counter.

"That's all the ones in my store," she said and she unfolded one of those ridiculous eco-friendly cloth tote bags. "No need to worry about price, your master knows the deal."

Playing a hunch, Dave asked innocently, "Something to do with a dermatologist?"

"You laugh," Tessha shot back, gently stacking the books in the bag, "but skin care is a very serious issue with wyrms."

The door chime sounded, an indescribably obnoxious buzz that Dave had hated at first but now understood the necessity of. He glanced over his shoulder and when he looked back Tessha was human once more.

Except not. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he could see where the human image didn't quite line up with the wyrm underneath, causing blurred edges and smudged colors. It was an interesting effect that he wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't known better.

"I'm sorry about the whole, uh, screaming thing," he muttered. Tessha gave a very wyrm-like tilt of her head in reply.

"That's quite all right. Had I known," she tapped a finger on his ring, which he had retrieved from Horvath's cane for sentimentality's sake, "I would have approached you differently. Tell the old one I said hello."

"Old one. Right. Thanks." He ducked his head and smiled at her, earning a smile in return. Then he ducked past the intruder and headed out, hoping Balthazar was in the lab where Dave had left him so he could get the chewing out he so royally deserved.

#

"You set me up!"

Balthazar didn't even look up from the morning paper. After a long moment he set down his coffee cup- tea was reserved specifically for lessons- and folded one corner over so he could see his agitated apprentice.

"Hello, Dave. How was your day?"

"You sent me there on purpose," Dave snapped. Normally he would be a bit more respectful in handling the prickly old sorcerer, but on his way home he'd worked himself into a fine lather over the whole thing and didn't want to lose his head of steam.

Balthazar picked up his coffee cup, took a sip, set it back down, and started to fold the paper. Along the original fold, of course. The man normally leaves pages scattered everywhere but now he decides to be neat and organized. When that was done, he swung his feet off the table and sat up properly, fingertips pressed together in front of him, gaze on the ground to Dave's left. Finally, a small epoch later, he looked up at Dave.

"Yes, I did."

Well, that was unexpected. "Why?"

"I wanted you to meet Tessha."

"And you couldn't have just told me? Or at least gone with?" Dave asked in despair. He hated it when Balthazar did this, when he turned everything inside out so Dave's understandable anger sounded immature and uncalled for.

"How'd it go?" Balthazar leaned forward, elbows on his knees and fingers interlaced. The very picture of patience.

"It... went fine," Dave ground out, jerking his chin up. Balthazar merely watched him. "I mean, she did startle me, a little, but I wasn't expecting..." Was the man even blinking? How did he _do_ that? "I, uh, might have... screamed. Like a little girl." His voice got quieter with every word, but Balthazar evidently heard him just fine. Very slowly, the sorcerer smiled. "I thought she was going to eat me, Balthazar," Dave added sharply.

"She wouldn't have hurt you," Balthazar said evenly, gesturing towards the books. "As long as you don't try to steal from her, Tessha's harmless. I wouldn't have sent you there alone otherwise."

Dave thumped the bag onto the table and Balthazar immediately started picking books out. One had his list, folded in half and tucked in the pages. He plucked it out and pressed it flat, then suddenly smiled. Dave peered around him to see a message on the bottom of the page, obviously not Balthazar's for its legibility.

_Get a laptop or learn how to write, you dinosaur, and be nice to that boy. He doesn't deserve your crap_.

Well, clearly Tessha had understated how well she knew Balthazar, if she dared to write him something like that and he only found it amusing. Then again, three hundred years was a long time, and Dave could only imagine how grateful the ageless Balthazar would have been to know someone who would still be around in a century or two.

"She said you know the deal," Dave said, and the sorcerer nodded once. After a moment, he asked warily, "Are there going to be any other non-human surprises any time soon?"

"No," Balthazar answered distantly, then shook himself. "Well, yes, but I'll be with you."

"Huh." Dave considered the scenario as a whole, a plan slowly forming. "So, do all sorcerers pay her in favors, or is it just you?"

"She can get money from anyone. Having a sorcerer in her debt is worth far more."

"Really."

A touch belatedly, Balthazar's warning bells started going off. He glanced at his apprentice. "No, Dave, she's not going to start telling you horror stories about me just because you take her out to dinner once or twice."

"Oh, yeah, I know," the boy agreed, nodding and moving back, hands tucked behind him. "Uh, I gotta go, I have a class-" Which had the added benefit of being true, so the sorcerer wouldn't call him on it.

Balthazar dismissed him with a nod and a wave and returned to sorting through the books. Dave darted upstairs, tripping halfway up in his haste, and didn't stop looking over his shoulder until he was safe in a bathroom on campus. Then, finally, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number.

"Hey, Veronica, it's Dave," he said when she picked up. "I was just wondering. Do you happen to know what book wyrms eat?"

"Why?" Veronica asked warily, on guard.

"Oh, no reason, just hoping to owe a friend a favor or two."

#

By the time Balthazar realized the serious error in judgment he had made, he was already far too late to save himself.


	2. Wyrm Food

This story is surprisingly popular, and despite my original intentions to leave it as a one-shot, too many people asked for more. So I bow to peer pressure. And y'all owe me, dammit, because it was hard as hell trying to decide how this one should go. Not to mention I'm at my cousin's house in PA, using a freaking Mac when I am most emphatically a PC person, and dealing with my cousin's one-year-old baby trying to steal my hair tie _while it's in my hair_.

On the other hand, my love for Tessha grows by leaps and bounds, because cranky old mini-dragons are always fun, so you'll probably be seeing more of her.

Disclaimer: me no own.

#

Balthazar's car was sitting in front of her shop.

Tessha the book wyrm, three hundred and eight years of age, longtime associate of multiple sorcerers including the great Balthazar Blake, and owner of the finest arcane shop in New England, hissed loud and long at the sight. Sorcerers were trouble, this one especially so and his boy twice that.

She darted through her shop on all eight hands and feet, graceful despite her admittedly ungainly appearance. The cat watched her from atop a bookshelf, curious as to what had her so agitated but too lazy to look. It was there purely to disguise the unique scent of ancient magic and wyrm scales. Tessha, ever the sentimental female, appropriately named it 'the cat' and thought it might be a tom. It hunted mice and masked her scent and in return she gave it a warm place to sleep and- and this was a big one with cats- a litter box with a privacy lid. Once their routine had been established both of them had proceeded to mostly ignore the other.

On the counter was a printer; Tessha worked a blank paper free of the tray and scrawled a quick 'closed for lunch back by twelve thirty' on it. She wound her way back up to the door and slapped in on the glass panel with a piece of tape. Then she checked her disguise, which sat over her serpentine body like a piece of glass hastily fitted into a picture frame several sizes too large for it. She was constantly amazed that the humans never noticed anything odd about her.

It was Balthazar's boy, the Prime Merlinian, who was coming up the pathway to her store. On his elbow was a pretty blond thing. Tessha snorted at the sight, remembering Balthazar complaining about his boy's being distracted by some girl, even as he himself couldn't stop making eyes at that Veronica. Humans.

What really caught her attention was the shopping bag swinging from the boy's arm. Sorcerers were trouble, true enough, and she didn't much like letting them waste hours in her store, scaring off other sorcerers and potential customers- not taking sides in this little scrap of theirs was simply good business ethics, it was nothing personal. But she was willing to tolerate them under certain circumstances, like if they brought her food.

The buzzer chimed a minute later as Tessha put on a pot of water to boil. She liked peppermint tea, which was strong enough for her old tongue to taste, even considering that a wyrm's sense of taste wasn't all that great to begin with. It continued to buzz, no doubt as the boy stuck his head in to see if the sign on the door applied to him.

"Tessha? It's Dave. You remember, Balthazar's boy?"

"Dave," Tessha said to herself. She was horrible with names. Descriptions, such as Balthazar's boy, were much easier to remember. She moved back through the doorway into the store proper, taking care to move at a speed matching her disguise. There was no telling what the boy- Dave, you overgrown newt, _Dave_- had told his friend about what to expect.

"Hi, there," Dave said to her, giving a half-wave. The boy always seemed nervous to her, skittish as a nestling first leaving the family den. As if every time they met he had to re-learn that she would not eat him. "Um, this is Becky. She's my girlfriend."

He said 'girlfriend' in a way that sounded half stunned, half smug. The blond girl gave him a patient, tolerant smile. Then she looked at Tessha, studying her closely. She wasn't going to see through the disguise just by that. Tessha obligingly dropped it for her.

Becky gasped and leapt backward, hand tightening on Dave's arm. The boy staggered and half-turned, keeping his balance, and hastened to reassure her.

"It's okay, Becky, she's harmless. She won't hurt you." He carried on, but Tessha paid him little attention; she caught the bag with one claw and tore it open in an easy flick of her wrist. Two jumbo-sized plastic carryout containers stuffed with salad tumbled out. She scooped one up and threaded her way through the bookcases into the back room. Book wyrms weren't strictly vegetarian, but they preferred their protein with gills, not hooves or feathers, and a little too lively for most humans' comfort.

The water wasn't quite done yet and Tessha stared at it in irritation. She couldn't use magic, being magic herself; she knew she was better off for it, but sometimes she regretted the ease with which sorcerers could complete time-consuming everyday tasks. When it became apparent that glaring wouldn't accomplish anything, she retreated to her salad. After a moment the door behind her swung open slowly, the humans not sure of their welcome.

Tessha picked out a tomato with one hand and waved them in with another. The salad boasted uncut tomatoes and whole leaves of lettuce, an entire block of cheese and a personal-size loaf of pumpernickel, but no carrots or cucumbers. She always appreciated a takeout boy who could listen.

"So you're a... book wyrm?" The blond asked carefully, maneuvering around the broad curl of Tessha's tail. Tessha dipped her head in a nod. "That's- I've been in this store before, I never would have guessed you weren't human."

"That is the point," Tessha said after a moment. She tucked her tail close around her and settled herself more comfortably. That was one of the good thing about being a wyrm- instant comfortability, no matter where you were.

"Yeah, otherwise things would get complicated," Dave muttered, watching the two females carefully. He sounded like he was reciting something he'd heard a few dozen times before. Tessha tilted her head towards him and used her claws to carve herself a chunk of cheese. Some things, she knew, needed to be learned by being experienced. She wondered if he knew she had heard about the incident with the mops. She wondered how badly it would bother him that she knew.

"Complicated at the very least," she said primly. "I do not care to be hunted down and thrown in a zoo simply because some sorcerer was unable to follow a few simple rules."

Dave opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, then looked at his feet and slowly turned pink. The girl, however, nodded in agreement. Easy for a non-magic user to say that. Far harder for a sorcerer- especially a mere apprentice- to actually live it. Tessha took pity on the boy and changed the subject.

"Tea?"

"What kind is it?" The girl, Becky if she remembered correctly, sat on the couch, settled on the very edge of the cushion as if to jump up the very second Tessha protested. The wyrm held up the packet with one hand while stirring the leaves in.

"Peppermint?" Dave wrinkled his nose. "Is it some requirement to like weird foods when you're a sorcerer?"

"Peppermint tea happens to be healthier for you than coffee or soda, or any of that other trash you drink," an affronted Tessha snapped.

"I want to try it," Becky interrupted. Tessha hissed at the sorcerer-in-training before turning to offer the girl her version of a smile.

As she ate, Tessha listened to Dave tell Becky the story of how they had met. Interestingly enough, he was careful to mention Balthazar as little as possible. Tessha wondered if he knew how obvious he was. Finally, when he was getting around to the end, he began to spare her nervous glances.

"I'm still not telling you anything," she said evenly, not even having to look up at him. He nodded and began to fish something out of his backpack.

"I kinda figured you'd say that, so I brought..."

A nose far more sensitive than any human's twitched at the faint scent of spices. Cat-green eyes fixated on the plastic container in his hand. The very end of her long tail began to flick back and forth. One hand strayed out and another smacked the back of it; she curled more tightly into herself and studied the boy warily.

"It's, uh, red beans and rice with Cajun shrimp and chicken," Dave said casually, as if she couldn't tell. She spared him a single glance before refocusing on the container. "From Pierre's."

Pierre's, a hideously expensive Cajun-style cafe in Queens, farther out of her way than New Orleans itself. She slithered closer to him and breathed in the smell of twenty-seven edible dollars. A guilty pleasure, Cajun cooking, the kind she didn't indulge in that often. She maintained her health by not splurging on junk, and barely left her shop on a good day, and wasn't the youngest of wyrms in any case, and would happily sell Balthazar up the river for that one tupperware dish of Cajun food.

"And what, pray tell, is the price for this?" she asked the dish, because if she took her eyes off it for a second it might disappear.

"Nothing much," Dave said too casually, shrugging a shoulder. "Just a story."

Sheer pride straightened her spine. She pulled herself up to her full height, arms folded over her chest, fangs bared slightly. "I told you once, boy, and I'll not be telling you again. If you want horror stories from your master's past you'll be needing to ask someone else." She leaned forward, took one last deep breath of the glorious smell, then turned her back on it.

"There is no one else," the boy protested. Tessha tilted her head, allowing her to watch him out of the very corner of her eye.

"That is your problem, not mine," she said stubbornly. By the great ancestral egg, that smelled really _really_ good. Were she some sort of fuzzy mammalian she would be drooling.

"Well, all right." He brought his leg up, balanced the dish on his knee and pried the lid off. "Then I guess I spent all that money on nothing, I don't even really like Cajun cooking. Do you?" he asked the girl, offering it to her.

It was believed that wyrms were descended from the great dragons of yore. The dragons themselves, somewhat stupid and more-than-somewhat arrogant and completely unable to live anonymously among the humans, had long since died out. Their cousins had survived and even flourished to a certain extent. Those such as Tessha made friends in key places, buying magic spells in fair trade and living quiet lives in the dark-lit corners of the world where no one could or would look too closely. Their teeth blunted and their metabolism slowed and they even learned to feed mostly on grains and vegetables- in short, they survived. But in some primal corner of every wyrm's brain lived a forty-foot-long apex predator who ruled through fear and enjoyed it. This part came to the fore in Tessha's brain at that moment, and with a vicious snarl she whipped around, grabbed the tupperware dish, and darted through the room and up a wall, tucking herself tightly onto a narrow balcony built there for just that purpose. Once there she craned her neck around and hissed at the humans.

"I'll take that as agreement," Dave called up to her. She snorted, not caring what he thought, and reverently picked through the rice until she found a shrimp. Jumbo-sized tiger shrimp; the whole shrimp, not chopped into tiny pieces.

"We ordered it with extra shrimp," Becky added. Tessha instantly decided that she loved both of them.

Poor Balthazar. He never stood a chance.

#

He found his car sitting in front of the used book store, which the pragmatic Tessha had named Used Books. It scared him, truth be told, because wyrms were easily bribed and Dave was creative. He had told Dave that buying Tessha dinner once or twice wouldn't be enough to win her over, which wasn't strictly true. It depended on the kind of food he brought her.

Balthazar traced his fingers over the hood of his car, sparing a glance inside curiously. As always, Dave had left the car immaculate. He was afraid that one little ding or scratch would cause Balthazar to revoke the car right, not understanding or perhaps caring that the machine was imbued with magic, making it easy to repair when the inevitable happened. With one tap of a finger the passenger door sprang open and Balthazar slid inside. A moment's search turned up a receipt.

He didn't quite swear, because weird things tended to happen when a sorcerer let his control slip. He did heave himself out of the car and walk quickly up the steps.

The sign on the door said she'd be back by twelve thirty. It was three o'clock.

The store itself was suspiciously quiet. The cat greeted him from the front counter with a loud demanding meow- affinity for animals was a Merlinian trait- and he obligingly ran a hand over its head and down its back. Tessha and his wayward apprentice were nowhere to be seen. Dave had already missed one class and was well on his way to missing another. Either something had gone horribly wrong, or they were having a grand old time and had lost track of time. Neither option boded well for Balthazar.

He reached the door to the back room and pushed it open; the laughter and talking in the room beyond instantly went quiet. Another bad sign. He took a half-step into the room and stared flatly at the scene that greeted him.

Tessha was curled around herself, like an oversized snake, tucked into a tight coil. She held a carry-out container from a grocery store and was picking out shreds of lettuce and miniature chunks of cheese. On one long loop, an empty tupperware container balanced carefully. The scent of peppermint warred with something spicy; the former he traced to an empty tea kettle and two dry teacups. Becky sat on the couch, wiping subtly at tears still rolling down her cheeks and trying to catch her breath. Dave sat in between the two and had instantly gone silent upon Balthazar's entrance. Now he had gone white and was staring at his master with an expression torn between outright horror and poorly suppressed laughter.

Balthazar debated turning around and walking out now.

"Oh my god, it's three o'clock!" Becky yelped suddenly, leaping off the couch. Dave scrambled after her, both kids giving the sorcerer a wide berth. Once backpacks were collected and good-byes said, the two kids literally ran from the room, the buzzer harshly sounding their exit.

Tessha regarded him with a self-satisfied expression. After a moment she held up the empty dish.

"Pierre's," she said simply.

"Am I going to have to bribe you to stay quiet?" Balthazar asked, sure by now that he was well and truly screwed. The wyrm popped a cheese chunk into her mouth and tilted her head in consideration.

"Now, that's an idea." She picked up a soup bowl half-full of tea and dipped her snout in it briefly. "It's perfectly all right, Balthazar, it wasn't even all that bad."

"You do realize he needs to respect me," the sorcerer snapped, knowing he was fighting a losing battle. Sorcerers respected and obeyed the magicless wyrms for a very good reason, after all. Tessha flicked her tailtip and began to unknot herself.

"He does respect you, you blind idiot, but knowing you're human and capable of error will help him _like_ you more."

He didn't try to protest, knowing her simple stubbornness did not allow room for his opinion. Instead, he watched her clean up. Finally he stirred himself.

"And what stories did you tell?"

"Story, sorcerer, just the one. And it was the time you and my brother went troll hunting."

True, it wasn't the worst story she could have told. It cast her thick-skulled brother in a far worse light than Balthazar himself, although it still wasn't exactly flattering. A smart sorcerer didn't take a book wyrm troll hunting. No doubt she had filled the time since with more stories about her idiot nest-mate- he had certainly provided her ample material.

"Pierre's is expensive," Balthazar said to himself as he picked up the tupperware container. Tessha summoned her human disguise, which looked to him like the flickering image on a TV with bad reception and tended to give him a headache, and strode into the front of the store.

"So is my knowledge, old one," the wyrm tossed back. "Silence is even more so, for once words are shared, they can be bought from many people, whereas silence can only be purchased from one."

She sounded like a fortune cookie. Knowing she wouldn't appreciate the comparison, he kept his peace and merely reached over to pet the cat.

"I don't want Pierre's every day," Tessha said to the counter she was sorting her books on. "Or every other day, or even once a week. Your wandering is done. What I want is for you to stay in touch this time."

"That I can do," Balthazar replied honestly.

"And not through the boy, either, or your chickenscratch writing. Actual visits, or phone calls if you're feeling lazy." Balthazar ignored her conditions, knowing it was only her knee-jerk reaction to the sensation of his getting off too easily. The cat was arching under his hand, purring rustily and kneading the countertop with its claws. Tessha saw that and hissed at it; it pinned its ears back and returned the favor, then leapt lightly off the counter to weave between the sorcerer's ankles. Balthazar moved until he could see through the front window and wasn't surprised to find his car gone. The store was quite a ways from NYU, after all.

"Something from Pierre's every once in a while can't hurt either," Tessha added. Balthazar stopped in the doorway, then half-turned to study the wyrm. He had a bad feeling about her claim to have only told the one story. Merlinians were notoriously bad liars, including Balthazar himself in his own way, but the rule unfortunately did not apply to their allies. She gazed steadily back at him, head cocked to the side, eyes unblinking. If she was lying, she was good at it.

"I'll see you later, then," he said warily, and Tessha chuckled deep in her throat.

"Oh, I don't doubt it."

He spared her one last glance then headed out into the cloudy afternoon, fully intending to meet his apprentice outside his class.

They were going to have a nice long chat about abusing the book wyrm privilege.


End file.
